Original art and prints, cycling paintings and personal stories I share through contemporary art

The Music That Shapes You

Moment by moment our life floats with a current and we are the brave sailors cruising it. Marcel Proust said: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes”. It goes along with being conscious of a moment and feeling every second of your life. Music adds an extra dimension to it. It thickens the air around us, filling it with a sound that resonates with every our cell.

In fact, multiple studies show how music, that is physically a number of sound waves reacts with water, troubling it in a certain way that causes the water molecules to change its shape for the moment. Microscopic videos depict the crystal structure of water to actually rebuild when exposed to sound. In fact, I found the German wine manufacturer that creates a special kind of wine – exposed to classical music. He claims that it changes it making it have a better influence on those who drink it. Like better kind of karma. I’d drink it haha. As we all learned in school – 90% of our bodies consists of water. Hense music must literally resonate with us as well. As a result, music influences human behavior and Spotify claims to its add providers that music helps to sell too. Here is the whole book on that, in case you wondered.

As Spotify promotes it – there is a sound for every occasion. I am an artist. Sometimes I listen to audiobooks on youtube when I paint. It is very entertaining especially in the last stages of the art process, as it is mostly working on details, that doesn’t involve too much of thinking activity. It still takes a lot of time, so audiobooks fit perfectly. I did a great deal of high school program catch up like that. Also, I discovered plenty interesting lectures podcasts. As another option – I use this time to be listening news or podcasts to practice my German listening skills. But that involves a fair amount of focus. Got to be careful with it.

At other times, when I am just in the beginning stage of a painting, I try to pick music accordingly with the mood that I am trying to recreate in a painting. Music on a background works similarly to a director in the middle of a filming process. An actor has to persuade a viewer that he really feels the emotions, he is depicting. A director has to educate an actor about these emotions. In the way, he temporarily uploads the leading to the current events history and psychological background to the actor’s consciousness.

Modern practices involve a lot of getting into a role preparation. There were multiple articles discussing Leonardo Dicaprio’s preparation to a shooting of the movie ‘Reverent’. They talked about his physical sacrifices to a hyper-naturalistic style of ‘Reverent’. The same stories surrounded Jared Leto’s approach to a Joker role in the new Bateman movie – ‘Suicide Squad’. The speculations in The Atlantic magazine were that this is the death of Hollywood. In the way that it is more so a ‘behind-the-scenes reality show’ that aims at creating promotional drama and coverage, rather than an artistic process.

In reality, this method of getting into the role was invented by the Russian theater director Stanislavski. He revolutionized the classical romantic acting style, turning it into brutally naturalistic. The ‘Stanislavski System’ changed the drama theater forever but it isn’t by any means a contemporary actor’s ‘knowhow’ drawn to gain popularity. It’s nothing more than a style of acting which may be or may be not preferred by a director.

The same thing with painting. With establishing of my artistic style, I have been experimenting with different techniques and genres. That included naturalism, impressionism, photorealism, installations, painting, filming etc. At some point, I had to prepare for an art show that would include 10 of my pieces depicting gigantic candies. So I chose Leonardo’s approach – I stocked my fridge with all sorts of sweets I was painting. Doesn’t help as much, I want to say. Music does, though.

I have no preference for styles – I choose to lose myself in a current moment. Yesterday I worked on the new piece. It is about this freezing snowstorm. Three men are trying to push their friend’s car out of the snow. Windows in the nearby houses are all tight shut. Not a single soul at this ungodly time. But right behind the men, there is a cycling peloton, racing through the snow towards the grand win. There is nothing that can possibly stop them. Because bicycles never get stuck, – cars do. You can read a bit more about my winter adventures as a cyclist in the hilly city of Kyiv (Ukraine) here. These memories inspired me to make a painting on this topic today. I really wanted the viewer to feel that vacuum that you find yourself in at this kind of storm. There are no distinct sounds, you almost can’t breathe, as it makes you feel like you freeze from inside, doing it. But you keep going as there are that finish line and a coziness of electric lights and a hot drink.

Music that filled my painting process yesterday was from the Under Zauber podcast on Radio Aristocrats. It is a Ukrainian radio. But don’t get scared of foreign language talk – the most of the podcast is pure atmospheric music.